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Extending Learning
VUE Number 16, Summer 2007
| VUE Home | Archives | Order Print Copy |
EXCERPT:
Alternative High Schools: Pioneering Promising Practices for Blending Academic and Extended Learning Opportunitiesl
By David Lemmel and Samuel Steinberg Seidel
David Lemmel is national director of the Alternative High School Initiative at the Big Picture Company.
> Author's biography
Samuel Steinberg Seidel is national project manager for the Alternative High School Initiative at the Big Picture Company.
> Author's biography
An initiative to create alternative high schools is aiming to erase the line between in-school and out-of-school learning.
As educators, we have come to a point at which we should take a close look at this familiar quote often attributed to Benjamin Franklin, a man known for both his grand ideas and his pragmatism. As a founding father of America’s principles of democracy, he advocated for freedom of choice for all. But the public education system, formerly cited as the crown jewel of American democracy, has lapsed into a system of disconnection, repetition, and disrepair. Once seen as an accessible road to upward social mobility, public education now functions as a gatekeeper institution that bars this nation’s poor and underrepresented youth from choice and free access to twenty-firstcentury post-secondary education and career opportunities (Allen et al. 1997).
Recently, widespread attention has been given to the burgeoning national dropout crisis: 30 percent of all students drop out before twelfth grade and nearly 50 percent of Black and Latino students do not complete high school (Bridgeland, Dilulio & Morison 2006; Thornburgh 2006). Residential segregation locates many young people in school systems that woefully underprepare them for college and the workplace. Consequently, growing numbers of students face drastically diminished life chances in the form of increased risk exposure to poverty, unemployment, inadequate healthcare, incarceration, increased homelessness, and rising mortality rates (Allen & Lemmel 2006).
Identifying and implementing strategies for engaging and preparing all students for future success is one of many important reforms that must take place if we hope to disrupt the cycles of institutional exclusion and racism described above. How can those of us who have dedicated ourselves to transforming public education in this way shake ourselves of the repetitive insanity to which Benjamin Franklin referred?
Extending and Expanding Learning
Recent research points to the importance of extending students’ learning experiences beyond the traditional school day and schoolhouse (Gordon 2007; Pittman,Wilson-Ahlstrom & Yohalem 2003). The 8:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. school day does not provide enough time to prepare students for the high-stakes tests and high-stakes society they are currently facing. It is not enough simply to extend the amount of time students are in traditional classes or increase the time they spend on traditional work. The experiences that a young person can have within the confines of a classroom do not reflect the diversity of settings and relationships young people must learn to negotiate in order to thrive in the academy and the workplace.
Many schools and districts have realized this and now partner with community-based agencies to provide “supplemental” services for students through after-school, weekend, and summer programs. Some of the programs in which students have the opportunity to participate feature innovative program designs, but it is uncommon for the programs or personnel to connect directly and consistently with the curriculum and staff of the schools. In the instances in which programs and schools deliberately align themselves, the assumption is almost always that after-school programs should play the role of supporting students’ academic work. It is rare that public schools take on the responsibility of understanding the important work these programs are doing — and even less common for schools to reconfigure their curriculum, schedule, and culture to enhance the impact of such programs.
Archives
Extending Learning
VUE Number 16, Summer 2007
| VUE Home | Archives | Order Print Copy |
EXCERPT:
Alternative High Schools: Pioneering Promising Practices for Blending Academic and Extended Learning Opportunitiesl
By David Lemmel and Samuel Steinberg Seidel
David Lemmel is national director of the Alternative High School Initiative at the Big Picture Company.
> Author's biography
Samuel Steinberg Seidel is national project manager for the Alternative High School Initiative at the Big Picture Company.
> Author's biography
An initiative to create alternative high schools is aiming to erase the line between in-school and out-of-school learning.
The definition of insanity is doing
the same thing over and over and
expecting different results.
—Attributed to Benjamin Franklin
As educators, we have come to a point at which we should take a close look at this familiar quote often attributed to Benjamin Franklin, a man known for both his grand ideas and his pragmatism. As a founding father of America’s principles of democracy, he advocated for freedom of choice for all. But the public education system, formerly cited as the crown jewel of American democracy, has lapsed into a system of disconnection, repetition, and disrepair. Once seen as an accessible road to upward social mobility, public education now functions as a gatekeeper institution that bars this nation’s poor and underrepresented youth from choice and free access to twenty-firstcentury post-secondary education and career opportunities (Allen et al. 1997).
Recently, widespread attention has been given to the burgeoning national dropout crisis: 30 percent of all students drop out before twelfth grade and nearly 50 percent of Black and Latino students do not complete high school (Bridgeland, Dilulio & Morison 2006; Thornburgh 2006). Residential segregation locates many young people in school systems that woefully underprepare them for college and the workplace. Consequently, growing numbers of students face drastically diminished life chances in the form of increased risk exposure to poverty, unemployment, inadequate healthcare, incarceration, increased homelessness, and rising mortality rates (Allen & Lemmel 2006).
Identifying and implementing strategies for engaging and preparing all students for future success is one of many important reforms that must take place if we hope to disrupt the cycles of institutional exclusion and racism described above. How can those of us who have dedicated ourselves to transforming public education in this way shake ourselves of the repetitive insanity to which Benjamin Franklin referred?
Extending and Expanding Learning
Recent research points to the importance of extending students’ learning experiences beyond the traditional school day and schoolhouse (Gordon 2007; Pittman,Wilson-Ahlstrom & Yohalem 2003). The 8:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. school day does not provide enough time to prepare students for the high-stakes tests and high-stakes society they are currently facing. It is not enough simply to extend the amount of time students are in traditional classes or increase the time they spend on traditional work. The experiences that a young person can have within the confines of a classroom do not reflect the diversity of settings and relationships young people must learn to negotiate in order to thrive in the academy and the workplace.
Many schools and districts have realized this and now partner with community-based agencies to provide “supplemental” services for students through after-school, weekend, and summer programs. Some of the programs in which students have the opportunity to participate feature innovative program designs, but it is uncommon for the programs or personnel to connect directly and consistently with the curriculum and staff of the schools. In the instances in which programs and schools deliberately align themselves, the assumption is almost always that after-school programs should play the role of supporting students’ academic work. It is rare that public schools take on the responsibility of understanding the important work these programs are doing — and even less common for schools to reconfigure their curriculum, schedule, and culture to enhance the impact of such programs.
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